A first attempt at a blog

‘Jurassic park’ for EU’s energy Utilities

Mon, 28 Jul 2014 19:30:02 +0100

The EU is well on the way to developing the next phase of its Internal Energy Market, due to be completed this year (except on the island of Ireland, due by 2016). The current development has been taken by the EU’s energy utilities as an opportunity to facilitate themselves and put another nail in the coffin of the incipient renewable energy sector, now a serious competitive threat that is causing many of them to lose money. Whatever credibility the EU had in its efforts to promote climate protection is all but lost, as it’s approach is exposed as hypocrisy, given what it has been doing with this market and its state aid rules. The EU, ably abetted by the Member States, is creating a ‘Jurassic Park’ for these energy dinosaurs, where they can run riot over the clear wishes of EU energy consumers, never mind the planet itself.

The subtle principles underlying the new electricity market design lead inexorably to a framework that works against variable power sources (like sun and wind) and instead works well for the traditional model of large controllable plant, such as coal, gas and nuclear plant. We are thus increasing our dependency on imported energy sources like gas, coal and uranium at a time of increasing global conflict, when we ought to be turning much more to our own local non-depleting renewable energy sources.

For example, why should the proposed plan for the EU’s power stations be made 24 hours ahead? That can’t be to suit wind or solar, whose production is driven by the weather. No, it is to suit large plant like Neurath in Germany, shown in the picture above, which need to know well ahead what they will be asked to do. The EU’s new market model (the Target Model) also insists on what is termed ‘balance responsibility’, meaning that generators are required to actually do what they forecast 24 hours earlier. This is virtually impossible for variable renewable energy sources, but suits conventional ‘dispatchable’ energy sources like fossil and nuclear. Thus the core principles of the EU’s market design are fundamentally biased and backward-looking. Requiring variable sources to commit to a plan 24 hours ahead and imposing penalties on them for not sticking to that plan is clearly imposing a large risk on them, a risk that will add significant cost and make them less competitive.

Instead, we should be moving away from the traditional model, where we the consumers do what we want, and the controllable power stations need to slavishly follow, a ‘passive’ model. With the emergence of competitive inexhaustible and clean variable energy sources and advanced IT, we could be moving to a more forward-looking system using feedback, where consumers (or their domestic systems) can know via the internet when, for example, cheaper wind power is available, and manage their demand accordingly - an ‘active’ model. That would be a more dynamic model, which would cope with the variability of renewable sources, having no need of balance responsibility 24 hours ahead.

The International Energy Agency reckons that energy subsidies are running at around €300 billion per year, and that surely does not take proper account of the huge value to nuclear of the free civil liability insurance provided to them by the nuclear nations (through the Paris and Vienna conventions). We also see significant resistance to taxes which seek to apply the external costs of conventional energies - for example, Australia just reversed its tax. Global energy markets therefore remain completely distorted, and yet this is the moment that the European Commission chooses to start pulling back on supports for renewable energy, using its state aid guidelines. In any case, supports to renewables generally come from consumers, not governments, which is what state aid rules are for. Nevertheless, the EU constructs twisted state aid rules and then threatens Member States to stop such progressive regulation or be taken to court.

The tide is increasingly against supported renewable energies, which tend to be larger commercial wind and solar projects. So consumers are being exposed to the increasing costs of imported fossil fuels (as rising demand comes into conflict with depletion), and now fresh threats to gas supplies, not to mention nuclear accidents like Fukushima with global impact. This is not what consumers want, so they will make their own choices, and more will elect to generate their own energy, to power their own transport and tell the dinosaurs to go to hell.

Of course, we all know what happened to the dinosaurs, and it looks like this is what is going to happen to the energy dinosaurs, and soon. This may be no bad thing in the end, as consumers will have empowered themselves. Let’s just hope the extinction process doesn’t contribute to disastrous global conflict.

SOME FOODS AT HIGHER RISK OF CONTAMINATION

Mon, 2 Jun 2014 10:04:32 +0100

While consumers have plenty to think about already when buying, they may want to consider the risk of contamination of food and drink they get from industrialised countries. We are all unavoidably exposed to the fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, and accidents like Windscale, Chernobyl and Fukushima. But products in some locations will also be exposed to ongoing deliberate and accidental discharges from nuclear installations and other sources of contamination, like chemical plants, never mind the military accidents we wouldn’t usually hear about.

It is not often mentioned that operating nuclear power stations regularly discharge heavy radioactive gases, such as isotopes of Krypton and Xenon, which otherwise build up inside the reactor. Some radioactive isotopes, like Tritium (a heavy form of hydrogen) can get into the cooling water, and end up in the rivers and seas used for cooling, which is a particular problem for the Canadian CANDU reactors, such as we have along the Danube at Cernavoda in Romania.

And of course ‘incidents’ happen at all nuclear plant, many of which lead to additional radioactive leakage. It is interesting that we tend to focus on accidents elsewhere, and rarely hear about incidents in Europe. And yet we have a number of nuclear installations (apart of course from Windscale) that were shut down permanently due to serious accidents; two in Germany, one in Spain, one in Slovakia and one in Switzerland! 1

Logically then, we ought to consider where our food and drinks come from when deciding whether to buy them or not, to at least reduce the risk of additional and unnecessary exposure to radioactivity. That requires information about the location where products come from, so wine is an obvious case in point. Since France has so much nuclear power, it is an obvious place to start, as shown in the map above.

Most French nuclear power stations use rivers to provide cooling water, so that they tend to be located in otherwise picturesque valleys, many of which are classic wine growing areas. The map shows this quite strongly for the Loire and Rhone valleys, so it would be wise to bear this in mind when buying Sancerre, Anjou, Muscadet, Cote du Rhone, also Bordeaux, Champagne and indeed Cognac, Armagnac and Calvados.

The link is less clear in Spain, where an effort appears to have been made to keep nuclear and wine apart, and to close plant, such as Zorita, in wine regions. Nevertheless, one would need to consider avoiding wines like Rioja and Navarra, and from regions like Terra Alta, Tarragona, Valencia and Utiel-Requena, as shown in the map below.

It does look as if we need to start developing tools for providing this type of information to consumers. With wine it can be easier, but with cheeses, meats, vegetables and so on, it becomes more difficult, since the brand may not be tied to a location the way it is with wine. Finally, it is almost impossible with fish, which generally move around, and live in a world which is increasingly loaded with nuclear and chemical discharges and millions of tons of plastics.

It appears that our so-called progress is merely a change in the nature of the problem, from one we could usually see (like smog) to one that is now more hidden, inducing a general sense of discomfort. Any wonder then that we seek organic food and mineral waters, but even then we can’t be entirely sure either.

Food for thought!

1 http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/decommissioning-nuclear-facilities

grasping at the nuclear straw

Thu, 31 Oct 2013 12:45:00 +0000

Any known source of nuclear energy has a rather short life span when compared to say the time over which human civilisation has existed. On the other hand renewable energy depends on the constant flow of energy from the Sun, itself a nuclear reactor, which is a safe 93 million miles away, that won’t break down for a few billion years, and that sends us a constant flow of energy that is 10 to 15 thousand times what we currently need.

Is it not very odd then that allegedly smart people suggest that the only solution is nuclear? They propose that we invest scarce resources in developing these Goliaths, against the wishes of ordinary people, especially after Chernobyl and Fukushima. The same smart people lie to us about the consequences of those and the many other accidents and have lied all along about the health effects (www.euradcom.org). They ignore the fact that most of the energy is wasted, dangerous radioactive gases are systematically released, that each station is a terrorist’s dream bomb, and that the waste problem has still not been solved, after nearly 70 years. Speaking of waste, consider Fukushima in particular, where massively radioactive spent fuel rods are now precariously poised above reactor unit 4, they are almost impossible to remove, and will surely come thundering down after the next big earthquake, starting an uncontrollable nuclear fire that threatens the whole planet. In any case, nuclear fuel of whatever form is limited in availability and will therefore run out, soon, in human civilisation terms. It appears that all these old dinosaur scientific and engineering types, and their fellow business men, can’t accept that they were and are wrong, that their approach is one of the most significant dangers to life on earth and that the solution is right under their noses (or above their heads in fact).

So if nuclear in any form is only a ‘short-term’ fix why waste money on it. If we do, we will eventually have to spend many times more cleaning up the mess and then make the sustainable investments we should have made in the first place.

A concern therefore is the increasing focus on the problem of carbon emissions and their unfortunate source, fossil fuels. These emissions pose the most serious threat to the planet, no question. But the consequent focus on being ‘fossil free’ opens the door for nuclear, and has been the only real lifeline available to nuclear in many decades. But if nuclear is employed to avoid climate change, and the fossil reserves are left in the ground where they should be, then once nuclear runs out, the pressure will be enormous to reopen those reserves, burn more fossil fuels and push the planet over the edge. So a fossil-free focus has a big risk, that it will induce a new wave of fossil consumption in due course.

Anyone who examines the facts coldly and calmly and thinks sustainably and long-term can only come to the conclusion that all bets are off, except for renewable energy. It is the only one that can avoid both climate and nuclear armageddon, while doing the minimum damage to our environment and the planets creatures, including ourselves.

A fossil-free slogan is both negative and dangerous. Our slogan must be a 100% renewable future, pure and simple.

What are we on about?

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:37:54 +0000

So which do we want, Fukushima or wind turbines? Or maybe natural gas or even unnatural shale gas? Why so much utter rubbish on RTE about using more gas or going nuclear? It beggars belief that Ireland would even consider sources of energy like nuclear and fossil fuel which will run out, and quite soon; and which damage the climate and cause Hurricanes like Sandy, even Katrina? Or which pose the horrendous risks associated with Chernobyl, Fukushima, the 1957 Windscale/Sellafield fire (let’s not forget), or Chelyabinsk, Monju, Harrisburg and on and on?

What sort of lemmings are we on this unfortunate island that we would look beyond our own magnificent renewable energy resources, which can provide all of our own energy needs and a lot more? Are we so brow-beaten by our neighbours, the EU, the fossil fuel industry or the nuclear industry that we can’t turn around and say - “no thanks, we have all the energy we need”. We don’t need all the risks associated with dinosaur energy. Better still, we can make our own economy boom by reversing our energy import bill from €6bn per year import to €10bn per year export - an annual shot in the arm of €16bn, which would contribute a lot towards paying off our debts, building our country and employing our people.

My late friend Hermann Scheer repeatedly pointed out that the world made the unfortunate mistake of opting for marginal energy sources, namely fossil, and more recently nuclear. These energy stocks are in limited supply, and cause horrendous consequences when used. The supply of energy from the Sun is effectively unending, and about 5,000 times what we use. To describe renewable energy as marginal, as some do, is laughable, and shows a complete lack of the simple ability to even calculate; even think. Indeed, the contrast is so stark that it is virtually impossible to graph a comparison. A graph the height of Dublin’s 120 metre Spire could show the true contrast, but would have a line at the bottom to represent human consumption that was only the width of a finger! To make that comparison, it is necessary to consider only 1% of the total energy delivered to earth by the Sun, as below.

Estimates of the earth’s total fossil and nuclear reserves vary depending on whether humanity agrees to reprocess nuclear fuel and reuse the recycled uranium and plutonium in MOX fuel, with all of the attendant waste (both nuclear and economic), environmental damage and, not least, safety risks. IPCC estimates vary from approx. 100,000 to 1 million Exajoules (EJ1). Assuming humanity won’t accept those larger risks and we cop on and really begin to use renewables, then we start to run out of non-renewable energy of any kind (the lower reserve number) not too far from the end of this century, as is barely visible at the bottom of the graph. In any case, the Sun delivers nearly three times as much solar energy to earth per year as the maximum total accessible fossil and nuclear reserves ever found on earth by humanity - the higher number above! Furthermore, onshore wind energy is by now as cheap as the most competitive fossil energies, and much more economical than the true cost of nuclear.

Interestingly, Hermann said he approved of nuclear fusion! But meant of course the source we already have, which is a safe 93 million miles away, won’t beak down for the next few billion years! Let’s cut the crap and get on with it!

As the Touareg say: “Il n’y a qu’un soleil sur terre” or “We all live under the one Sun”.

1 An Exajoule is a quintillion Joules (million million million), or approx. 277 TWhr

Extinctors

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 01:12:55 +0100

The human species now has the capacity to do almost as much damage as an asteroid, and is increasingly using that capacity. While we will never be completely certain until it is too late to stop it, it is now pretty much beyond doubt that human induced climate change is underway and accelerating. If we continue as we are, we will reach a point at some stage where we could lose the atmosphere. James Lovelock argued that would be irreversible, and curtains. Another Mars.

We will in any case run short of the fossil fuels that are causing the problem, though not in time unfortunately. Global production will soon start to drop, failing to meet accelerating demand. That will lead to social breakdown, and who knows what unforeseen consequences, and possibly a similar outcome. On present trends then, the human species has to be regarded as another form of 'extinctor'.

However, the human species is very diverse. There are those recklessly pursuing the path of self-destruction, whom we might term 'extinctors'. At the same time, we have others actively trying to stop them, by putting in place alternatives to prevent a catastrophe, whom we might term 'saviours'. It is too easy just to blame humanity as a whole, and stand back to wait for the bang. As a small contribution, this piece sets out to classify the various types of human from extinctors to saviours.

Actions are more significant than words, so at the ends of our spectrum we have those doing the worst physical damage and those implementing the most effective mitigation. We have all shades in between.

The oil, gas and coal companies are amongst the worst, along with those who incompetently, selfishly, or malevolently oppose the development of renewable energies, thereby aiding and abetting these extinctors. However, those who go to war to secure those fossil fuels are even worse. They expend huge amounts of energy derived from fossil fuels to conduct the wars, only to liberate the fuels so that their use can cause further emissions. A 'double whammy'. It would therefore appear that the authors of the Iraq war, for example, and all their backers and financiers, are at the very leading edge of the extinctors.

On the other hand we have those who are producing energy from sources that don't release climate damaging emissions. The nuclear power types see themselves as saviours, but in truth their radioactive contamination of the biosphere is a threat to the genetic integrity of all species. They are thus another longer-term type of extinctor. While renewable energies do little harm, and displace much dirtier fossil fuel plant, they aren't actively reversing the problem caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. That is down to those carrying out natural sequestration of GHGs. So it seems that those around the world planting trees with a view leaving them in situ or at least storing the wood, not burning it, may be the greatest saviours, so far.

Climate change may in fact be so serious that we will have to put in place technologies to actively remove GHGs from the atmosphere, and store the result in some fixed form; for all the world, reversing the combustion of fossil fuels. If driven by renewable energy, these technologies could make a serious net contribution to the problem. Those who promote such developments might be the ultimate saviours. This category would not include Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) power plants, as they make no net removal of emissions.

The shades in between these extremes could be broken into a few helpful categories. Not as bad as the extinctors, those doing serious damage such as heavy polluting industry, like steel and chemicals, nuclear, airlines and their more active passengers, and those clearing forests and so on might be termed 'wreckers'.

Milder still is most of the Western world, emitting considerable amounts from their businesses, houses, cars and holiday flights; they put a new twist on the term 'consumers'. Somewhere between the consumers and the wreckers we have those around the globe rearing farm animals, whose gaseous emissions are a serious climate change issue.

There is a vast section of the World's population who consume little fossil fuel, directly or indirectly, normally because they are too poor. They do damage of course, by for example cutting trees for fuel. Some in this category are actively living more sustainable lives, protecting forests and so on. We might term this large group as the 'neutrals'.

When we try to look on the positive side of the scales, unfortunately we find very few people, another indication that we are at risk of runaway climate change and global disaster. Three groups of people present themselves.

Firstly, those who do some small good overall, by doing little travel, consuming local produce, living in climates that require little heating or cooling, and using for example solar energy for their needs. Many people around the Mediterranean live this way. Those further afield implementing sustainable solutions, doing organic farming, planting some trees and so on, could be included in a group called the ‘sustainers’. We might also include here those in the IT sector whose contribution means less unnecessary travel, because communication is now much easier, with the likes of Skype or Facetime.

Next up we have a group of people who advocate for sustainable development, and thus make a positive impact with others, multiplying their efforts though thousands of others. The most well known of these ‘advocates’ would be former US Vice President Al Gore, and less well known would be people like the late Herman Scheer MdB, or for example the Greens in all their forms.

Finally, we could add the relatively small group that is actually putting the sustainable solutions in place, such as the renewable energy sector, the electric and hydrogen car manufacturers, the energy saving industry, and so on; let’s call them the ‘Renewers’.

So our spectrum is:
- Saviours
- Renewers
- Advocates
- Sustainers
- Neutrals
- Consumers
- Wreckers
- Extinctors

Which are you?

Grattan